The south beach study: Bystanders' memories are more malleable

Abstract

People's reports are affected by what others say. The current study compared memory conformity effects of people who interacted with a confederate, and of bystanders to that interaction. A second goal was to observe if memory conformity occurs in a naturalistic setting. A male confederate approached a group of people at the beach and had a brief interaction. About a minute later a research assistant approached the group and administered a target-absent lineup to each person in the group. Memory conformity was observed. Bystanders were twice as likely to conform as those who interacted with the confederate. Forensic investigators should take into consideration the role a person plays in an event when assessing eyewitness evidence.

Memory Conformity for New and Old Items with Immediate and Delayed Testing

“…Bodner, Musch, & Azad, 2009;Brown & Schaefer, 2010;Carlucci, Kieckhaefer, Schwartz, Villalba, & Wright, 2011;French, Garry, & Mori, 2008;Gabbert, Memon, Allan, & Wright, 2004;Hope, Ost, Gabbert, Healey & Lenton, 2008;Shaw, Garven, & Wood, 1997;Paterson & Kemp, 2006b;Skagerberg, 2006). A smaller number of studies have shown that individuals are also susceptible to memory conformity when PEI is introduced after a delay.…”

Intelligence, Authority and Blame Conformity: Co-witness Influence Is Moderated by the Perceived Competence of the Information Source

“…The manifestation of a co-witness discussion can create significant problems for investigators by creating an environment where eyewitnesses are at risk of being misled by their co-witnesses into reporting inaccurate information within their statements-a process commonly known as memory conformity Tousignant et al 1986;Wright et al 2000). This phenomenon has been extensively researched, with a consensus that exposure to misinformation during a PED can have negative effects on the memory recollection of eyewitnesses (Carlucci et al 2010;Gabbert et al 2004;Garry et al 2008;Mojtahedi et al 2017a;Mojtahedi et al 2019;Paterson and Kemp 2006). Perhaps one of the most adverse consequences of a co-witness discussion is the possibility for memory conformity to occur when the witness is later attempting to attribute blame (Mojtahedi et al 2017b;Mojtahedi et al 2018a;Mojtahedi et al 2018b;Thorley 2015;Thorley and Rushton-Woods 2013).…”

The Underdog Narrative in Movies: When Our Memories Fail Us

“…There is much research on the malleability of memory exploring diverse proximate factors (Carlucci, Kieckhaefer, Schwartz, Villalba & Wright 2011;Payne, 2011). We propose that recollections can be shaped by a rather distal social schema with potentially far-reaching implications.…”